Ice Factory Festival at 3LD to Feature Six Premieres

Artistic Director Robert Lyons proudly presents the 18th annual Obie Award-winning Ice Factory summer festival of new work. Ice Factory 2011 opens June 22, presenting six New York Premieres in six weeks, and wraps up July 30. Performances take place Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7pm at the 3LD Art & Technology Center, located at 80 Greenwich Street (at Rector Street) in New York City. Tickets are $18 for adults and $12 for students/seniors and can be purchased online at http://www.SohoThinkTank.org or by calling 212-352-3101. Train access via the #1 or R to Rector Street. For more information visit http://www.SohoThinkTank.org.

Last year, after eighteen years in Soho, the Obie Award-winning Ohio Theatre lost its space on Wooster Street, and went into residency at the 3LD Art & Technology Center. Under the banner Ohio Interrupted@3LD, they'll be producing Ice Factory 2011 at 3LD in June and July. In September 2011, they will open their new space in the West Village, called Ohio West.

"The summer festival with the hippest downtown cred...Unabashedly intellectual." - TimeOut NY

"New York's #1 Summer Theatre Festival" - New York Magazine

"STT's Ice Factory festival has a fine record for presenting intellectually challenging and artistically daring fare." - The New Yorker

"New York's gold standard in summer theatre festivals." - Gothamist

In the Ice Factory festival, Soho Think Tank presents works by emerging and established downtown companies, as well as exceptional national and international groups. Ice Factory prides itself on maintaining extraordinary aesthetic diversity along with an unequaled standard for intelligent, imaginative theater. The festival offers companies a prime forum in which to develop their work. Previous Ice Factory shows have gone on to Off-Broadway, the Joyce, P.S. 122, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Walker Art Center, among others.

Soho Think Tank strengthens, nurtures and promotes an aesthetically and culturally diverse community of independent theatre artists and theatre companies by producing, presenting and programming new work in New York City.

ICE FACTORY 2011 - 18TH ANNIVERSARY PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

June 22 - 25
Struck - Written by Robert Saietta, directed by D.J. Mendel, with music and lyrics by Rebecca Hart.

Nomadic cult-rock performer Beth Prosser defied a death hit by lightning at age eighteen, leaving her with copious musical talent and a worsening neurological condition. Ten years later she's crossing the country on a non-stop tour she calls the Transient Luminous Event. But when a mysterious weather pattern strands her in her hometown, electrical storms ensue: inside and outside the human brain. Neuroscience that rocks! Based on a true story.

Robert Saietta is the Producing Associate Director of International WOW, performing in and creating over twenty plays in NYC and abroad. D.J. Mendel directed the last three Cynthia Hopkins shows at St. Ann's (among many other things). Rebecca Hart is an actress and a singer/songwriter who fronts a rock band (www.rebeccahart.net). "Textured vocals, sticky melodies, and a band that packs...heat," says TimeOut NY.

June 29 - July 2
The Pig, or Vaclav Havel's Hunt for a Pig - Written by Vaclav Havel, adapted for the stage by Vladimir Moravek, translated by Edward Einhorn, directed by Henry Akona and presented by Untitled Theater Company #61.

Vaclav needs a pig for a party with his dissident friends. An American journalist arrives for an interview. The villagers have a pig to sell, but where is it? And why is everyone singing The Bartered Bride? Food, drink, song, video, politics and celebration collide in the English language Premiere of this theatrical-musical-technological-gastronomic extravaganza. Come hungry. Feast on pulled pork, Czech beer and live music.

Untitled Theater Company #61 is a Theater of Ideas: scientific, political, philosophical, and above all theatrical. They were the producers of the acclaimed 2006 citywide Havel Festival (including his entire oeuvre!). Other notable productions include Velvet Oratorio at Lincoln Center in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the Ionesco Festival, the NEUROfest, the Off-Broadway production of Fairy Tales of the Absurd and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep at 3LD.

July 6 - 9
Pontiac Firebird Variations - Presented by Aztec Economy, written by Casey Wimpee and directed by Matthew Hancock.

A fractious New York crime family enlists six potential killers, pitting them against each other across a traffic jam of alternative realities. Filled with nagging consciences, dreams of murder, car shoptalk and 80s pop culture, this revving-engine riff off Shakespeare's Richard III (Act I, Scene IV only!) disassembles the origins of desire and murder in a fatal pileup of tragi-comic proportions.

Aztec Economy is a Brooklyn-based theatre company that develops and presents original performances with an emphasis on atypical narrative structures and immersive experiences. Their work has been presented at P.S. 122, The Tank, the Brick Theater, the Fridge in Washington D.C., Monkey Town, Bushwick Open Studios, aboard the Steamship Lilac off the Hudson, and in churches, bars, lofts and backyards throughout NYC. (newyorkisdead.net)

July 13 - 16
An Impending Sense Of Doom - Presented by the Subjective Theatre Company, ensemble created with Julia Holleman as lead writer and directed by Jeffrey Whitted.

Fears of economic collapse. Militia leaders living in storm-ravaged wastelands. Infiltrated utopias. Augmented reality games. This appropriated mash-up of pre/post apocalyptic genres wonders aloud: Why does "end-of-days" paranoia permeate our culture, and what makes the idea of Armageddon so damn attractive? Deconstructed fear and fanaticism leads to an appropriately apocalyptic denouncement. (Or not.)

Founded in 2001, the Subjective Theatre Company produce a wide range of politically and socially relevant theatre that challenges and entertains, while inspiring creativity and social responsibility. "The little engine that could!" - John Patrick Shanley.

July 20 - 23
Three Graces - Presented by Café Antarsia Ensemble & Immigrants' Theatre Project, libretto and lyrics by Ruth Margraff, music by Nikos Brisco and directed by Ian Belton. Artistic Consultant is Marcy Arlin.

An Iliad for modern Greece, told in the lyric voice of a woman named Three Graces. In a swell of failed rebellion, forbidden lust, west and east - two blood brothers wrestle like devils in the night. A Cretan wife keens in lament, a trickster spins like a dervish in an ominous cucumber wind, and a henna girl refuses to dance. An operatic panorama inspired by Greek blues and Cretan rebel songs from the tables of a timeless tavern.

Café Antarsia Ensemble performs in NYC venues including Joe's Pub, Galapagos, BAM, HERE Arts Center, The Chocolate Factory and P.S. 122; and in cities around the world, including Moscow, Belgrade, Cairo, London, Istanbul and Athens. CAE is dedicated to coexistence through music and artistic exchange. Marcy Arlin is the Artistic Director of The Immigrants' Theatre Project, an Obie Award-winning company that has presented the premieres of over 250 plays, while curating and developing artistic exchange residencies and consultancies for multi-cultural arts programming and special programs.

July 27 - 30
Sometimes in Prague - Created by Joshua William Gelb and Stephanie Johnstone, produced by Magic Futurebox and Rusty Ring Thelin.

A chance encounter between three Americans in a Czech pub ignites this hybrid theatrical event - a collision of video, rock music and audience participation (including copious amounts of cake and champagne). Provocatively examines the tension between polyamorous and monogamous relationships, posing that perennial question: what is the most authentic way to love in our progressively shifting culture?

Stephanie Johnstone is a composer/lyricist whose work has been performed at CSC, NYTW, Joe's Pub, HERE Arts Center and Cafe Vivaldi. Joshua William Gelb is a director and playwright whose work has been seen at the Incubator Arts Project and Naked Angels. They have previously collaborated on Tully (In No Particular Order) for the NY Musical Theater Festival. Sometimes in Prague was workshopped at The Tank and performed in concert at Joe's Pub.

New for Ice Factory 2011...enjoy each show in cutting-edge, state-of-the-art air conditioning!